February Success Spotlight: Using the “Onboarding Analogy” for Leveraging AI and Bots — Together

Using AI for certain applications in customer service, such as classification and labeling, can massively reduce man hours. Using bots for automated information collection and self-service allows customers to get answers faster.

When used properly together, though, AI and bots can deliver customer service that increases customer satisfaction, decreases costs — and levels up agents. But these capabilities can’t just be “turned on”; they need to be strategically implemented throughout the customer journey.

For this month’s success spotlight, Customer Success Manager Ashley Mo dives into how AI and bots can work together harmoniously. In order to think about the role that these intelligent features play, Ashley recommends thinking back to your first week on the job. Ashley explains:

Imagine yourself as a new employee at a tech company on day one of your job. In order to start providing value to the company, you need to quickly learn the product. Traditionally, you might have to ask other employees in different departments for help. Or you could look through internal documentation to try to find answers to your questions on your own. This can be overwhelming and cumbersome to navigate — not to mention potentially annoying for team members.

Now think about this in the context of customer service.

If you had access to an answer bot, you’d be able to have a conversation with a bot about the product first, without bothering other employees. You’d be able to immediately see the parts of the documentation relevant to your questions and read them on your own. You’d be able to help yourself before most of your questions were even recorded. This is similar to how an answer bot allows customers to find answers to their questions before an issue is created.

Here’s how it works for within the context of the customer service experience:

Your customer asks a question

Answer Bot scans the text and then suggests up to three relevant FAQs from your knowledge base

The customer picks the FAQ that is the most relevant, and it hopefully adequately answers the question

What if you need more help and guidance?

Maybe this is your first time working at a tech company and you need a little more hand holding. If answer bot doesn’t successfully help you answer your question, you’ll need to formally verbalize it. But again, you don’t really know “who is who” yet, and need to first figure out who can best answer the question. If you had an AI tool here to classify questions, you wouldn’t need to bother a person — especially your manager — trying to figure out who to ask. That’s something they shouldn’t have to waste their time on.

Once the AI classifies your question, the AI would determine whether this question can be handled by another automation (bot), or genuinely needs a human touch. If the AI determines that a bot can handle it, then a bot would walk you down a scripted path to get you to the answer you’re looking for. Maybe it’s your first time booking a meeting room, and a bot walks you through step-by-step how to book a room on your calendar, and then allows you to do so.

If your question is more complicated, such as having access issues to your calendar, your manager may need to get involved after all.

Bottom Line: AI and Bots Need to talk to each other.

In order to see the full range of benefits, these capabilities need to work together to maximize agent productivity in addition to delivering a great user experience. To learn more about how these features impact the full customer journey and how to get started, watch a demo or check out our 2019 customer service toolkit.